[Illustration: NORTH-WEST SIDE OF PYRAMID OF KABAH.]
Now as the Aztec independence only dates from the reign of Itzcoatl (1426), their conquests and subsequent power cannot be earlier than the reign of Montezuma I. (1440); it is obvious, therefore, that they were not in a position to send reinforcements before 1440 to the ruler of Mayapan. This autocracy lasted but a few years; a coalition of the people of the Sierra was formed, war broke out, the king of Mayapan was vanquished, the city captured and sacked, when the hostage caciques returned to their native provinces. Landa places this event in 1420, whilst Herrera gives 1460 as the probable date. We think the latter justifies his chronology, since he writes “that seventy years elapsed between the fall of Mayapan and the coming of the Spaniards, varied by years of plenty, storms, pestilence, intestine wars, followed by twenty years of peace and prosperity down to the arrival of the Europeans.”[145]
He further states that each cacique took away from Mayapan all the scientific books they could conveniently carry, and that on their return home they erected temples and palaces, which is the reason why so many buildings are seen in Yucatan; that following on the division of the territory into independent provinces, the people multiplied exceedingly, so that the whole region seemed but one single city.”[146] Landa says “the monuments were built by the natives in possession of the country at the time of the Conquest, since the bas-reliefs represent them with their types, their arms, and their dress;” and “that on going through the woods and forests, groups of houses and palaces of _marvellous construction_ were found.”[147] This is sufficiently clear, and whether these monuments were inhabited or not at the coming of the Spaniards, is beside the question. On the other hand, the prosperity mentioned by Herrera and Landa found expression in the peculiar monument, which in its original plan represented the florid style, always observable at the end or the brilliant beginning of a new art, being the reproduction of an older style, varied by elaborate ornamentation of questionable taste.
[Illustration: BAS-RELIEFS AT KABAH (FROM STEPHENS).]